Week 23 - ITF ($100K+H) - Nottingham, UK Grass

daisy · County player

Week 23 - ITF ($100K+H) - Nottingham, UK Grass

Peter too · Tennis legend

Elena took the 5th match point to wrap it up.

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Is that 8 Nottingham wins in a row now for Bally? She certainly seems to enjoy it there.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Easy peasy for Dominikovic & Peers: 7-6(4) 6-0. bleh All up to Anne & Laura now...

indiana · Tennis legend

Not a bad day for the Brits smile with Bally folowing James' and Andy' s ( wink ) success, not a bad week in the end.

Interesting the discussions before and during the Nottingham 75K + H ( the first of the 2 Nottingham ITFs ) re the effect of the Nottingham festival and 2 ITFs ( of higher prizemoney ) compared to the one last year on the British players and their opportunities.

Pointswise, not unexpectedly they earned a lot less points in the first week, but many more in the second week, spread between Nottingham 100K + H & Birmingham WTA. Bally's win today makes the GB women's points now greater this year than last year for the 2 week period.

2010 total GB points with players earning 10 or more points :

Nottingham : 153 ( Baltacha 70, Keothavong 18, O'Brien 10, Broady 10, Fitzpatrick 10 )

Birmingham : 59 ( Robson 25, Keothavong 15 )

Total : 212

2011 :

Nottingham 1 : 49 ( Keothavong 16, O'Brien 16 )

Nottingham 2 : 117 ( Baltacha 80, Keothavong 20 )

Bormingham : 60 ( Watson 30, Broady 25 )

Total : 226 ( with Bally still going )

In total 24 GB players earned at least a point in 2010, 20 players this year.

So it has worked out much the same pointswise at the moment ( Bally earned 71 last year and has 80 at the moment this year so her successes have currently had a pretty neutral effect on the overall comparison )

Gieven clearly a lot more points on offer compared to last year maybe ideally we would have liked the GB points to have gone up even more this year, but more quality players have been in attendance ( which was the fear particularly re last week ) so overall I'd say it's not really been too at all.

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 10th of June 2011 04:12:23 PM

Eamonn · Improver

A late update from yesterday when I was there until 6.30pm. Annie K made made way too many unforced errors and lost two service games from 40-0 up - Dubois just had to keep the ball in play. Later in the doubles she was still struggling but Laura was fantastic. She's now tall and powerful with a big serve and she dominated the match from the second set onwards. They were 3-0 down but both then played really well to win the MTB easily in the end.

Peter too · Tennis legend

SF: BALTACHA, Elena (GBR) 5 74 v DUBOIS, Stephanie (CAN) 139

steven · Tennis legend

Dubois came through a long match with 4th seed Rodina today. Elena has played her once before, thrashing here 3 & 1 in Auckland WTA qualies last year.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Very good from Bally today, but her opponent played a very strange match. Sometimes looked injured and would concede alot of soft points, but then fought very hard at the end of each set.
Anne withdrew from the doubles, officially with an injury, but unofficially needing to signin for Eastbourne qualies, curse those Williams sisters who gobbled up 2 of the WCs.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Laura and Anne out of the doubles. Anne withdrew because of illness/injury. (Source - Tournament Director)

BIG

Oh I see Mr Quick got there 1st with that biggrin biggrin (Well I suppose he is on site. But I nearly drove over there this eve to see their match and would have been fairly gutted........ as I'm sure they are too)

-- Edited by Julia Carrot on Friday 10th of June 2011 04:27:16 PM

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Phil. Any more news on Laura's plans for next week?

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

I guess (if it's not a real injury) Anne and Laura made the decision to withdraw once it became apparent that there was no chance of getting both the QF and SF played today.

Because it's already Friday evening it seems a shame that they have to pull out of the doubles, but they have only played one match so Anne's (and Laura's if she is involved in Holland) singles plans for next week are always going to be more important

indiana · Tennis legend

I see some more ludicrous points awards from the WTA in 100 + H tournaments. Not only are they typically in my view too linear in progressive round by round points awards ( as opposed to more rewarding real success ), in this case Bally will have got more additional points ( 40 ) for winning her QF than she will get if she wins her SF ( 30 ) with back to just 40 more for winning the final.

Points progress from winning last 32 to final : 20, 40, 80, 110, 150.

Don't know why at least not : 20, 40, 70, 110, 150

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 10th of June 2011 04:53:50 PM

philwrig · Hall of fame

Julia Carrot wrote:
Phil. Any more news on Laura's plans for next week?

I assume she has a MDWC like last year. I was very encouraged by her performance in the doubles last night, just a shame Anne and Laura couldn't have continued on as the draw had opened up with the number 1 seeds having withdrawn as well, had a realistic chance of winning the whole thing.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

philwrig wrote:
Julia Carrot wrote:
Phil. Any more news on Laura's plans for next week?
I assume she has a MDWC like last year. I was very encouraged by her performance in the doubles last night, just a shame Anne and Laura couldn't have continued on as the draw had opened up with the number 1 seeds having withdrawn as well, had a realistic chance of winning the whole thing.

And I would love to have seen them do that.